Re: Right of attribution

Vance Coven writes:
>
>The theoretical answer is that I don't have any problem conceiving of
>academic scholarship as a form of commerce (though without doing some
>research I can't say that it would pass as such under the Lanham Act).
>The practical answer is that if you can get away with an unattributed
>block of text the journal isn't going to advance your career much
>(unless you're Alan Dershowitz, maybe).

I've been wondering for some time about the relationship (in the eyes of the law) between academic scholarship and commerce. Given recent antitrust actions by the feds against private higher ed (primarily in areas of tuition and financial aid), is there any sense that the traditions of academic scholarship (e.g., cross-institutional collaborative research) are likely to run afoul of someone's concept of competitive fairplay? Specifically, if it is improper for institutions which compete in the marketplace of ideas to "conspire" to set tuitions, is it also unfair for them to conspire to do collaborative research?

David Dailey
<david.p.dailey[_at_]williams.edu> Received on Wed Dec 07 1994 - 01:45:24 GMT